I recently wrote an article about the ways that you can decide to put the ball back into play after you catch it as a goalkeeper. You can punt the ball out, you can put the ball on the ground and kick it out from there or throw it out. There are now a ton of articles on this site, and for some reason I have never talked about this topic. Perhaps because throwing the ball out is a bit of a dying art in goalkeeping. However, I do believe that there are plenty of benefits of learning how to throw a soccer ball far for goalkeepers. As I said in a recent article there are always things that you’re going to be better at than others. It’s really hard to be a master at everything as a goalkeeper.
There’s a real benefit though to having a bunch of different skill sets. The way I see it you’re adding elements to your arsenal to bust them out when needed. With that in mind even if you have a very strong leg, and you can punt the ball into the next county there’s some value in working on your throwing motion. This is because the game is not always going to need you to kick the ball into the next county. In fact, there are plenty of coaches nowadays that want to build plays from the back starting with the goalkeeper. Knowing how to throw a soccer ball far is going to benefit you quite a bit. In this article though, I want to go over throwing long, and rolling the ball out to a teammate that’s close by. That’s also a good skill to develop.
Benefits Of Throwing The Ball Out
The first thing that I want to cover are the benefits of throwing the ball out. As I mentioned it seems to be a bit of a dying art. One of the reasons for that though, has to do with goalkeeper coaches not putting enough time and effort into developing this play. There are coaches out there that don’t put enough time and effort into goal kicks and punting. Imagine throwing the ball out that falls way below on their priority list. In spite of this, there are actually plenty of benefits. The most obvious one is the fact that you can put the ball back in play quickly. You can throw it out even in a congested box.
So let’s say that you catch a corner cleanly. You’re going to be able to run out and throw the ball to a teammate so that they can go on the counter. Could you do the same by punting the ball out? Sure, but when you’re throwing out you can navigate some of the traffic that can generate in the box after a play like that a lot better. Usually if you’ve got the throwing motion down you’re going to be able to have more control over a throw than a put. It’s not a coincidence that people took about a good pass with the foot as one done as if it was put there with a hand.
Just a recap, the benefits are that it’s easier to throw than punt in a lot of traffic. You can have more control of where the ball is going to go when you throw it. Also, you can make a better effort to ensure the ball is easier to control. You can choose to skip the ball to a player or put it on them directly. You can’t really skip a pass with the foot.
When To Roll & When To Throw
The obvious answer to this dilemma would be to say that you want to throw the ball out when the player is further away from you. You can roll the ball out when your teammate is right next to you. That’s more or less true, but I just introduced a new variation in the last paragraph which is to go ahead and “skip the ball” on the ground to get it to a teammate. What you’re essentially doing in that situation is throwing the ball not directly to your teammate’s chest or their feet. You’re throwing to a spot in the ground because what you want is for the ball to bounce there and get to them at a speed and a height that makes it easier on them to control the ball.
Rolling out is for situations where the player that you’re trying to get the ball to is closer. Also, they have to be wide open because you don’t want to pull a Loris Karius, and throw the ball where a player from the other team can get it. To roll the ball out you’re going to want to bowl. There’s really not much more to say there, you can practice this type of play much better at a bowling alley than virtually anywhere else.
When it comes to throwing the ball out though you can throw to someone for example that’s on the wing on the other side of the field. Let’s say you grab the ball on the right side of the field and the left back drops back and is wide open on the other side. You may want to skip that ball across the box and get it to them. When you have more length you can throw the ball out to a winger that’s at the halfway line. For the most part you’re not going to want to throw to the middle of the field. Unless you’re rolling the ball to a defensive midfielder that’s wide open. On counters, you may also want to lead your teammate to a spot as he or she is running forward.
How To Throw A Soccer Ball Far Step By Step
Now for what everyone came to read, sorry about the longest intro ever produced on this site. How to throw a soccer ball far! It’s actually a basic process, but in a lot of ways it’s like a golf swing. It looks a lot easier than it is for some people.
Step 1
What you want to do in the most basic throwing motion is stand facing completely towards the side of the arm with which you want to throw. Think of a baseball pitcher, and how they start their wind up facing completely to one side. You want to do this, so you really get your hips into the motion and that allows you to throw further even if you don’t have the strongest biceps on the planet.
Step 2
The second step that you want to master is the twist. You’re going to push off your front foot and turn your body towards where you’re aiming. This is the most important part of the process. As I just said you want to get your whole body into it because this is going to allow you to generate more force.
Step 3
Now it’s about putting it all together. Grip the ball between your forearm and your palm. That’s going to allow you to create a better launch angle. You want to swing your arm forward and launch the ball at the highest point in that motion. That’s going to allow you to get as much distance on the ball as possible. Your arm has to recreate a catapult motion. You want to have the ball down by your chest or hip area even, and as I mentioned let it go at its highest point. The biggest mistake in this part of the process is to side arm the launch, and that’s usually going to take a lot of distances away from the throw. Sometimes we do side arm throws if we want a quicker release.
Things That You Can Do To Help You Throw Further
It would be really easy to say here that you can go to the gym and have the strongest arms known to man. That’s going to help you out. It won’t matter that much if you have perfect technique because your arm strength on its own is going to allow you to throw far. However, that’s not necessarily accurate. What I’ve seen work because it worked for me a lot of goalkeepers that trained under coach Jeff Tackett were using medicine balls to practice the technique. You can get started really young with the small medicine ball. It doesn’t have to have a lot of weight on it for it to work out.
Ideally look for some of the harder medicine balls that in texture are going to be similar to a soccer ball. Don’t go for the plastic ones. The reason for this is so that your grip doesn’t have to change as much. Also, the feel that you’ll have with one ball over the other when you release is similar to some of these harder medicine balls. Obviously choose one that’s closer in size to a soccer ball as well. It’s better to have a smaller medicine ball than a larger one. Again because of the grip and feel. With a larger ball you may mess up your grip. You don’t want to hamper your technique when you’re looking for more strength and distance.
Should You Use Throwing As Your Main Way To Put The Ball Back In Play?
I have a full article on this that I wrote recently, I think I mentioned that already. Just to make it clear though, as a goalkeeper it’s always better to have more ways to play the ball out. What that’s going to give you is the comfort of knowing that you can make any play that you want to make. Let’s go back to the corner example that I threw out earlier. Even though throwing out can be a quicker way to get your teammate to go on the counter, maybe they’re a bit too far out. You’re going to want to have confidence in your punting technique at that point to put the ball where it needs to be for them to be able to make a play on it.
If they are standing closer to you, or you feel that you can deliver a much more controllable ball with your hands it’s nice to have that luxury. Sometimes it’s natural that you’re going to tend to choose the method that fits your skills best. For example, in my case I usually prefer to throw the ball out. I prefer to do so because I have more faith in my throwing ability and precisely my throwing aim than I have in my punting aim. If we go back that’s maybe because I worked more on throwing than punting, and that’s a bit of a problem. As I’ve said before you want to have all the tools at your disposal so that you can pick the one that fits you best!
